SOURCE: Paulson, Ronald. “The Tradition of Comic Illustration from Hogarth to Cruikshank.” Princeton University Library Chronicle 35, nos. 1-2 (1973): 35-60.

In the following essay, Paulson describes the influence of Hogarth and Rowlandson on Victorian illustration. Paulson suggests that in some cases literary illustration stands as a text of its own, while in other cases illustrations function as a kind of commentary or interpretation of the verbal text.

I

Sophisticated analysis of book illustration is a recent development, with most attention going to a few special cases like Blake's dynamic marriage of illustration and text in his printed works.¹ Another special case, which is my starting point in this essay, is the illustrations for Dickens' novels. Essays by Michael Steig, Robert L. Pattern, and others have shown that subtle textual interpretations are contained therein and that the same sort of analysis that is brought to bear on Dickens' text can...